Wednesday, 29 October 2014

Glasgow Adventures

I've been exploring around Glasgow these past couple weekends. Here's some of the stuff I did!

Glasgow Cathedral and the Necropolis

My favorite stained glass; it's actually made up of words, I think for the donors of the cathedral

The view from the Necropolis, of the cathedral

The Glasgow cathedral was started in 1136. Just typing that is unreal; it doesn't look like a real date. Since then, there have been various additions by different priests. It actually is still a working church. The Necropolis, which is basically a graveyard, overlooks the cathedral and the Royal Infirmary, which is right next to it. I went to the cathedral twice, and the second time I went to St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, which is right next to it (and has free admission!)

St. Mungo

The Zen garden outside

Tying my ribbon on the tree

Aboriginal religious art

View from the museum

St. Mungo Museum is really cool. He is the patron saint of Glasgow, but the museum itself was all about different religious. So I learned about six religions, with input from Glaswegians that practiced that certain religion. I also really liked their room on religious art, which had a huge variety of art dedicated to different religions, from the main religions to pieces from Native American and Aboriginal artists.

Willow Tea Rooms

Afternoon tea with Jasmine

All the necessary ingredients for a proper tea

It doesn't look like it, but it was a lot of food!

Jasmine and I got afternoon tea at the Willow Tea Rooms, which is a famous tea room in city center that was designed by the famous Charles Rennie Mackintosh. I hadn't heard of him before coming, but he is a well known Glaswegian designer- architecture as well as interior design. We had small tea sandwiches, a huge scone each, a cake each, and shortbread. We both had their Willow Tea Room blend of tea. Yum!

Merchant City & Glasgow Green

I was on my way to the People's Palace, which is a museum about life in Glasgow, in the East End, and happened to get to see a lot more the of the city than I anticipated! I walked through Merchant City, a part of Glasgow so named for newly rich traders' huge houses they built to show off their wealth. (Many of them got rich off of tobacco and slave trade with the U.S.). Now a lot of their old houses are used for businesses and shops. I got to see a little of the East End- definitely not as sketchy as I've heard it is.

Merchant City

Just like the cover of my Glasgow guide book

East End of Glasgow

The People's Palace is a museum, inside Glasgow Green, a big park for people, kids and dogs to run around in. It's still legal for people to dry their laundry out here, as it was used for historically. I brought my camera for photography, and thankfully it wasn't raining, so I could use two hands to adjust all the settings!! I tried the other day to take pictures, in the rain, while holding an umbrella, and it was a struggle. The green was a great place to take pictures, and there was more to see than I expected!

Glasgow Green

More Glasgow Green

And here are pictures of the main reason I went out there. The museum itself is pretty small, covering things like living in Glasgow during World War II and dealing with German bombing, Glasgow housing history, and bits of modern life. The fountain outside of the building is the largest terra cotta fountain in the world and shows the crown jewels of Victorian Britain: Australia, India, Canada, and South Africa.

Winter Gardens

People's Palace

Random parts of Glasgow

Street art on Argyle St

Cathedral St

Glasgow Botanic Gardens which I walk through every day to get to and from class